Experimental evidence is presented demonstrating that an ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) beatwave can drive toroidicity induced Alfvén eigenmodes (TAEs) to a finite amplitude and also increase the amplitude of TAEs already excited by fast ions. The radial structure of a beatwave driven TAE reconstructed from soft x-ray measurements is shown to agree with simulations from the gyro-kinetic code LIGKA. Thus beatwaves provide the means to excite TAEs which can be used to diagnose the plasma's safety factor profile through MHD-spectroscopic techniques without significantly perturbing the plasma or to influence the stability of existing TAEs allowing their effect on the fast ion population to be studied.
Observation of TAE activity in JET